If Japan must borrow for large or extensive repairs, there may be fewer buyers for U.S. or European bonds

The broader impact may mean that Japanese foreign investment in cities like Houston gets pared back as more capital is devoted to domestic rebuilding needs. The stocks of reinsurance companies began falling as investors worried about the financial impact of claims from such a large disaster. Shares of European reinsurance giants Munich Re and Swiss Reinsurance Co. led the decline.

As Bloomberg reported:

The insurance industry may have to pay out about $10 billion in claims, according to James Shuck, a London-based insurance analyst at Jefferies International Ltd. That would make the disaster the second-most costly temblor on record, after the $15.3 billion quake that struck Northridge in the U.S. in 1994, according to data compiled by Swiss Re.

The scope of the disaster, and therefore its insurance costs, is expanding, as the tsunami from the quake continues to spread across the Pacific. It’s already shaping up to an expensive year for global insurers, following a devastating earthquake in New Zealand and flooding in Australia.